Zoo Tycoon

Oh give me a home.. yawn.. where the antelope roam...zzz..zzzz......zzz....

There were so many games that stuck a tycoon after their freaking names after Roller Coaster Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon did so well that it could make your head spin. Most of these titles were done by smaller developers and publishers however and many were actually packaged as bargain titles. So when Microsoft announced that they would be publishing a tycoon game of their own, we had hope as they probably wouldn't pick up "just another tycoon" game. So here we have Zoo Tycoon where you, much surprise here, are challenged to create and run a successful zoo in all aspects including keeping the animals happy and healthy as well as keeping the people happy. So if I have to do this in the game, isn't it reasonable to ask that they keep me happy and entertained?

It's not like this is the worst game in the world or anything, but there really isn't much exciting to keep you occupied here after playing for a certain amount of time. Unlike a game such as Roller Coaster Tycoon, which is comparable in looks and general gameplay, there just isn't enough room for serious creativity, which is what made that other game so successful. Each of those roller coasters built were different from the others and there was some serious planning going into them to make sure they fit and were exciting.

Unfortunately, what could have been an opportunity for some creative enclosure designs gets mired down in the strict rules for what the animals will consider suitable for their tastes. Consequently all of the enclosures I ended up creating tended to be pretty much the same thing each time around. A little jungle floor tile here, a few trees and bushes there, a play set for the chimps to play on, and a shelter. Wash, lather, rinse, repeat. Sure, the animals are different and have different needs, but not different enough to make a difference. They want certain terrain in their enclosures, certain plants, maybe some rocks... it's all the same in the end even if the graphics for each are a little different. The only real planning you need to have in terms of foliage placement is to make sure that you don't stick trees near the walls in enclosures with creatures that can climb trees. They will escape and harass the public (and even attack them if a predator gets loose).

And then on top of that, even when your little help from the zoo keeper screen tells you that an enclosure is perfectly suited to the stupid animal inhabiting it, the animal might be totally pissed off to be there. Which would actually be understandable if these creatures were just pulled from the wild in real life, but this is a damn game. How am I supposed to get it more perfect than perfect?

Even if you do veer from the tried and true square cage and go a little wacky with your design, there are no curved pieces for caging. This means all of your designs are going to be blocky and generally uninteresting for the most part. There is very little to make the parks more interesting for the people coming to visit it in terms of looking into the enclosures. Even things like the petting zoo, which might have been fun to put together was taken and replaced by a big blocky building that people just disappear into and you never see what actually happens inside... poor sheep.

The general gameplay isn't going to be unfamiliar to any of the tycoon gamers out there. The view is isometric and can be rotated so you can see the field from four angles. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any hotkeys for removing people or trees from the field so designing enclosures could be easier. After finishing an enclosure, by creating an enclosed (go figure) space out of the different walls and fences, you can name the thing and then stick some animals in it. At this point, you can start adding the necessary adjustments to make your creatures happy. You'll see if they like what you've done by a happy or frowny face that pops up above their furry little heads. Eventually, 'cause its really only a matter of time, you'll have the ideal habitat for your animals. Yay. Now you'll need to make sure they're healthy and all of that jazz by assigning a keeper to them. These guys are in charge of feeding, cleaning up after, and administering medical aide to the animals. You can assign several cages to each keeper, but for some reason, they don't always seem to want to perform their duties. Animals go hungry sometimes and get pissed off cause too much poo is building up in their cage or get sick and unhappy, and the damn keeper just walks up to their cage, looks in and walks away. And yes, I did make sure he could get in the cage and that he was assigned to it.

Now you'll also have to keep the park visitors happy... which is a pretty easy task. All you have to do is make sure that they have places to eat and sit and poop and pee as well as hiring a couple of maintenance guys to clean all of their trash up and you've got it made. Make sure they have something to waste their money on in the form of souvenir shops and elephant rides and they'll be more than happy. Mostly, keeping your animals healthy and happy is the way to go as their happiness makes those looking at them happy.

Games themselves are broken down into free form and scenario. The scenario games are really where any challenge lies. You'll have a certain amount of time with a certain amount of money to make enclosures for a certain amount of creatures while keeping them and the park visitors a certain level of happy. The scenarios start out pretty darn easy and get fairly tough, but not in a way that challenges you in new and creative ways. The free form games take place on open maps set in strange places with strange terrain like an all water level, a moon map, and a river gorge map. While you have to plan a little more on these maps for where you're going to stick your animals there still is only a small amount of creativity being thrown around here causing boredom once again.

I suppose some of my complaints about the game also generate from the boring visuals. The fences and enclosures all end up blending together aside from your own tree placement and the animals that are kept there. The animations of animals and people around the park are just kinda choppy and sad (even the dancing penguin, which was neat in idea, was animated badly). And the sound was just kind of blah as well. Animal noises blended together and some were downright amusing such as one of the goat creatures, (forgive me for not going back to check its name please) that sounded like someone was stepping on a duck.

Maybe its from the fact that I grew up in San Diego where the zoos are absolutely incredible for a bunch of different reasons, but this game didn't manage to capture the interest that parks like these generate. It's almost like looking at a zoo of stuffed animals. I don't think there are a lot of people running to fork out the nickel it takes to get into a place like that and I'm not going to recommend that anyone, except those that have never been and never plan to go to a real zoo or just need to have anything zoo related (the infamous zoo groupie), pick this game up. I just think you'll be bored by the average graphics and sound and the sad lack of real creativity that makes some real world zoos absolutely amazing.